A Smile in His Lifetime Author:Joseph Hansen Hansen has won deserved praise for his Dave Brandstetter mysteries, especially for the sensitive, matter-of-fact treatment of Dave's homosexuality. But now, in a somewhat autobiographical novel, the sexuality is stage-center instead of incidental; and, though Hansen's talent often surfaces here, this mid-1960s erotic odyssey is largely m... more »audlin, melodramatic, and gushily superficial.
Pretty, thin, balding writer Whit Miller has been married for over ten years to boyish-looking but maternally protective Dell--who accepts his need for sex-on-the-side with a variety of men: promiscuous, short, red-haired Sandy; muscular young neighbor Kenny; black, married commercial artist Burr. But then--just as Whit is leaping from scraping-by (writing porno) to big-book/movie-sale fortune--his sexual status quo collapses: Dell has found someone else, someone who doesn't just need her, and tells Whit that he's ready to go it alone; Sandy opts for gay monogamy; Kenny opts for heterosexuality; and Burr's tough, cheerful just-sex approach is a dead end. So Whit, weighed down by all the accouterments of California success, has to look elsewhere--to bearded young Jaime, counterculture bookseller and poetry-lover. It's love at first sight--Jaime claims to be in chaste mourning for a heroin-killed lover--but when drunken jealous Whit (furious to discover that Jaime is having sex) tries to shoot him, Jaime is touched and does move in--only to wind up, soon, in the hospital via LSD. And then Whit becomes promiscuous, which results in his being robbed and beaten up badly: everyone comes to his hospital bedside, including eager/fickle lover Kenny, but Whit ends up alone with his faithful cat.« less